Corporate leaders as politicians will continue to be funny until they’re suddenly not. We all laughed at Donald Trump’s past attempts at running for president of the United States. We even laughed at his rhetoric in 2015 and the birth of 2016. After seeing his 22 point lead in the Republican Primaries most of us aren’t laughing anymore. I know, some people out there in internetland think that having a businesshead at the helm of the most powerful nation on earth (something US presidents never fail to mention, BTW) is a great idea. They think that the recession, current politicians deny, will be over in short order. But, the rest of us, those who actually use our brains, now realize that the horror of the possibility, we recently laughed at, is now about to become a reality.

Following Trump’s lead we now have this asshat, named Kevin O’Leary, who feels it is his solemn duty to bribe Rachel Notley out of Alberta’s Premier’s Office with a donation of…

… one million dollars…

… into the energy sector. Don’t misunderstand O’Leary, he doesn’t mean clean energy, like solar or wind farms, or even geothermal power. He means to inject that money into dirty, dangerous and earthquake causing oil, specifically fracking. Kevin O’Leary, someone who seems to have already heavily invested into Alberta Oil (he had to have because of his one million dollar bribe attempt, something that makes no sense unless he was scared of losing something big), further stokes the fire in Canadians by threatening to attempt leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. Some of us are still laughing, and given what is going on in the US with Trump and their conservatives, I think we should stop laughing and take his threat seriously.

I shouldn’t have to include the highlights of the past corporate misdeeds that have led to undeniable, human caused, climate change. By now I shouldn’t have to even include all the cases where corporations have sacrificed the health and wellbeing of consumers by hiding the harmful and toxic materials they’ve been putting in our food, or the blatant false claims made on products. By now, even the most ignorant should be aware of some of it, even though the vast majority of the cheating, underhanded and outright illegal practices are still ignored by cognitive dissonance.

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little carried away here. Except that I’m not. The capitalist threat to democracy is real, whether or not you want to admit it, and the entire practice of maintaining a tight grip on the majority of the world’s wealth is bringing civilization back to the days of monarchies. The wealthy, the kings, queens and emperors of the corporate juggernaut, are the real powers at the helm of our governments. Our political systems – systems humanity had worked hard to achieve, losing many lives in the process – have been hijacked by the unrestrained greed of people that already have more wealth than is reasonable for any single entity. The environment, politicians and the 99% have been bent over and figuratively raped for financial supremacy.

After reading this far, my audience can be divided into three camps; those that agree, those that aren’t sure and those that still think that capitalism is the only game in town. It’s not. The fact that you cannot fathom a scenario without a struggle to put food on the table and have an affordable roof over your head only shows that you are incapable of understanding how the system works.

Back to the meat of this article. If you’ve watched Dragon’s Den you know that Kevin O’Leary, and indeed all the dragons, are only interested in the money. They don’t care about giving other people a start in business, or a fair shake on any deal. They want control of the idea and the money. Knowing this is the key to understanding why O’Leary, and Trump, are interested in getting into politics in the first place. You may be naively wondering why those with all the wealth would do this, thinking that they have no reason to cheat the system. Perhaps it is fear that the vast populations of the world are finally waking up, or maybe it is the fact that the corporates see their dream of being the new emperors of new monarchies coming to fruition, or that they simply no longer have to hide behind lobby groups and backroom deals with those we supposedly elect into office.

A while back I made a prediction. I stated that the time to really fear these people, and the loss of our rights as citizens, is when they start to directly and openly run government. The time is nearly upon us. That Trump is so far ahead in the primaries, and that Bernie Sanders has always been seen as a political joke, should hammer my point home.

It is no longer funny. It is no longer a joke. Business in politics is a real threat to everyone, including themselves. Stop laughing and start fighting.

Regarding my last article, I just want to be serious for a moment. In no way do I endorse deliberately pissing off coworkers. Far from it. However, this is exactly what happens. You get a new job, you say that it will be different this time. This time you will work your butt off even harder so the employer doesn’t have a reason to let you go. You honestly want to impress them, because you absolutely have to break the pattern of job loss and desperation that keeps forcing you to get a job with lesser pay. But then, there is always that dick-in-the-arse coworker that seems to think that you are deliberately embarrassing them, that for some reason it is your fault that they can no longer coast along at minimal effort. But, doesn’t that fly in the face of everything you were told growing up? You’re told to work hard, impress your boss and the world is your oyster. This is not how it works, though… is it? More often the harder you work the more people you piss off and turn against you.

Does this mean that you are supposed to slack off, and produce less than you’re capable of, just so the lazy workers can like you, not want you dead, and not work against you? I don’t know, maybe. The economy is tanking and I cannot afford to go without work. So, maybe it is best to betray my own abilities and do less. It certainly seems that hard work earns resentment not reward.

If you’re like me you can’t just not work hard. I was brought up with a work ethic that I cannot fight against. Every time I try to dial it down I feel so horrible that it doesn’t last. In the end I am a bad person for being one of the few who absolutely has to work harder than everyone else. Why? It’s not ego… and it definitely is not to make others look bad. I have to be the best because the last thing I ever want to be accused of is not pulling my weight. It is embarrassing being told that, and it hurts, so I avoid it.

I wish I lived in a world that matched how I was raised. I wish I was raised in a world that sees talent, facilitates it and helps it grow and prosper. I don’t. Instead I live in a society that shuns hard work, that cares nothing about people, and effectively treats those like myself as garbage. How it happened I cannot say, and I won’t try.

I will get another nowhere job, work my butt off, piss off coworkers, just by being good… and then get let go because I don’t fit in. I don’t fit in because I have ethics. I cannot change that. I will not change that. I will work, go home, write a blog or render a 3D image… or something. I will return to work and feel miserable, because I cannot fathom why someone or other finds me so offensive. I will go through that same cycle again and again, day after day, until I get laid off again… and again. I usually like ending these little rants with something positive at the end, but I see no positive here right now.

Step One: First and foremost one must remember that it is nearly impossible to get a job that perfect. Seriously, don’t dream about the job you love, get paid well for, that uses your skills every day, rewards you for work well done, where everyone respects you and want the best for you. That is fiction… smarten up. The sooner you realize that your pipe dream is not achievable, the better off your sanity will be. This realization may even keep you from a future suicide attempt.

Step Two: Now that you know that nearly every attempt to land and keep even a reasonable job is doomed to failure, you can now prepare for the blockages you will encounter.

You got a new promising job! Congratulations! As always, try your best, work hard and a promising future… will forever remain out of reach!

The first of these blockages will appear within the first month… if not sooner. This is that coworker who, for some mysterious reason, just hates you. It could be that they feel threatened that you are just better at the job than they are. Maybe you inadvertently insulted them, but they won’t say shit to you about it, so you’ll never know. It may even be as simple as they just don’t like your face. Regardless of the reason, that coworker needs to be set up in such a way that they get themselves fired. First, bear in mind that nothing you can do will cause them to change their mind about you. They hate you and always will.

Next, find those things that you do so much better than they do, and just do more of them. This will piss them off every time. Don’t worry that they will simply hate you more and more, because that is your goal. What you want is to cause them to hate you so much that they will pay more attention to getting back at you that they will let their own duties slip. The more you rub their nose in the fact that you’re damned awesome the more they will let their own job suffer. The boss will see this, and may tolerate it for a long time. Stay the course, because eventually even the boss will get sick and tired of the person laming out that the coworker will get fired.

Step Three: It is possible that the coworker has badmouthed you to other coworkers. The easiest way to tell if this has happened to you is to watch for those whose behaviors and attitudes that have changed pretty much overnight. Don’t fret, because as mentioned above, you will probably never get that ideal job, anyway. This is where the optimism for that new job takes a serious nosedive. People are fickle, especially coworkers that have been there longer than you have. You are the newbie and as such you are not seen as worthy of being asked if any given story is true or false. They are all friends with the coworker who openly hates you and therefore they will always believe that coworker’s word… no matter how insane the story is.

Step Four: Now that you’ve gotten rid of that hostile coworker, just by being awesome, you can now turn to the next blockage… all the other coworkers who are now working against you. At this point no matter what you do or say it will make no difference at all. Even after the first coworker is fired they will not see his/her own behaviour as the cause. They will only see that YOU got him/her fired. It is your fault and you now you need to pay dearly for it in the form of shunning and anything else they can think of. From here on you will never be given the benefit of doubt. Even the boss may be part of the group against you. You may well be set up for failure at every opportunity. You are the enemy now.

The best you can hope for is not getting laid off for some trumped up reason (but don’t hold your breath). Because nothing you do will make a difference you might as well be a regulation nazi. If they’re smoking right by the door, complain about it. If they’re not following procedure, call them on it. By now you know the drill… it’s war.

Step Four Sub: Of course you could always keep your nose clean, don’t do anything back at them, be all happy looking and kind. But, you and I both know this will only open you up to be mowed down by their cavalry. Congrats, due to no fault of your own, you are now the target for the tiniest little mistake (that they get to make and never hear a bad word from the boss), and you can suddenly never do anything right (even though your work habits haven’t changed a bit since day one).

Step Five: Now it is probably a good idea to look for a new job, that is if you haven’t been laid off yet. Look for something that is completely unrelated to the industry you just left, because those ex-coworkers will badmouth you to everyone related to that industry. Of course, your pay will probably drop with each new job, so the graph of your income will zigzag downward over time. Relax, because that’s capitalism!

Step Six: Now that you have found that new promising job, be sure to do really well at it from day one, because you need coworkers and bosses that like you. (See Step One)

Special thanks to all my past employers who have provided me with ample subject matter for this

Step One: This is the most important step, because without this step it will only take longer to lose. In order to ensure a swift effective loss, one must always lead into the topic with an insult to the other side. Remember, this isn’t about eventually reaching an understanding or common ground, this is only about making the other side feel stupid.

Step Two: Almost as important as Step One is the inability to acknowledge and apologize for the insult. In fact it may be best to respond to anyone calling you on said insult by insulting them also. This way you make absolutely certain that everyone who believes in calm, reasoned discourse knows exactly the calibre of your personality. Let them know that you are not to be fucked with. Keep that hammer at the ready, because that tool fits all occasions.

Step Three: Sometimes you will come across those that aren’t even phased by insults. They may continue to use evidence and support for their arguments. Remember that hammer? These people must be put in their place. Find something personal, something completely unrelated to the topic and insult them on it, while stating something completely unsupported by fact. Be sure that you do not support whatever it is, as the last thing you want is to suddenly start sounding intelligent.

Step Four: On occasion you may have someone calmly advise you to be more mature. This is a thinly veiled insult. They have effectively called you childish, while appearing to be in some way morally superior. That’s right, they think they are superior and are, in fact, talking down to you. Raise that hammer again, because the only way to win against these people is to push them with even more insults. Eventually they will break. Just for good measure you may want to pick apart spelling and grammar mistakes, because these little errors have absolutely nothing to do with the topic.

Step Five: Use only word of mouth facts. You must not under any circumstances check into those facts before mentioning them. Doing so will destroy the entire image of someone not to be fucked with that you’re trying to get across. Besides, if they want the support so badly they can damned well look them up themselves. You might even want to say this to them, as it may frustrate them early on, making them leave the argument and thus letting you win by default.

Step Six: At some point you will be asked to provide support for the facts you know damned well are true. When this happens you are not helping your case by obliging these insane requests. Besides, they are requests not demands. Even if they did demand you can always state that you do not answer to demands. It is a good idea to reply with words to the effect that your facts are “common knowledge”… you may even want to use those exact words.

Step Seven: As you progress in the argument the opposition may end up backing each other up. This is simple ganging up on you, and only appropriate for your side to do to their side. It is completely unfair that the other side of the argument pose a unified front of reason. It is very frustrating, I know, but remember that to win the argument, you cannot cave to their demands for logic, reason, evidence and support.

Step Eight: Keep pushing facts without any weight to them. Eventually they will get fed up and leave the argument. At that point you can claim victory. Be proud that you pulled it off and that it cannot be said that you lost because they you gave up, you didn’t. Tenacity, tenacity, tenacity will always win the day.

Special thanks to certain Facebook users in recent history who have demonstrated all these steps. If it wasn’t for you wonderful people, I’d still be wondering about what topic to write about today.

BTW, if you liked this and got here from an external link, I encourage you to go here and join the group.

Also known as prepackaged falsehood and non-wisdom that can often give you a false sense of intelligence and enlightenment. Whether it’s in Facebook, Twitter or any other social media you encounter, you will have a good lot of garbage in your feed passed off as truth. But, how many of us actually take the time to think through them before sharing? I do, and you may think you do, yet social media is still being flooded with drivel that’s mostly false. Those memes you see that quote famous people, are either tongue-in-cheek, grossly misstated, or outright lies… lies that can make you look stupid, ruin your car, or kill you.

So, why are these things so popular? We are products of the instant gratification age. We have been molded by the fast food, automatic seat adjustment, rear view cam, drive through banking, park in the spot absolutely closest to the door society. So, why would our social media be any different? We want our information just as fast, just as automatic, just as convenient and just as prepackaged as everything else in our lives. Just like fast food we don’t want to take the time to be sure we aren’t getting fed garbage. We get our news instantly and never look past the source we get it from, because we have so much else we would rather do, see, hear and play right now. We don’t want to mess with the details or turn our heads just a little further to get a better look at the subject.

We definitely do not want to go beyond the familiar and comfortable. We haunt the same places that appeal to our preconceived notions we were raised with. Our friends are our friends because they agree with everything we say, and vice verse. If they don’t, they were never our friend in the first place. At least that’s what we tell ourselves so we don’t feel like the closed off, narrow minded, sheep we’ve become. No place does this become so rudely apparent than the racial issues plaguing our world right now.

These issues are dividing us more and more, daily. We can thank the internet for that. Hey, at least you get the news on the race war, that many seem to really want, instantly. Don’t get me wrong, the internet is not in itself bad. It’s a great thing. However, not only do we have the sum total of human knowledge at our beck and call, we also have the sum total of idiocy at the speed of stupid. And because we refuse to take the time out of our over busy day to check the facts many of us get convinced of the craziest of ideas.

Too many believed it when Gliese 581g was reported to be an “earth-like” planet, and only because a single member leaked the news before anyone could stop him and tell him he’s too stupid to be a scientist let alone someone looking for exoplanets. Well, the report was found to be a false alarm, but that didn’t stop those who wanted to believe the idea so badly to become hostile to those who preached calm, collected reason before jumping to a conclusion before all the data was in.

The same thing happened in just the last twenty-four hours when Dr. Lawrence Krauss, of the LIGO team tweeted that gravitational waves were found. Well, LIGO itself refused to back up Dr. Krauss, who, it turns out, is more of a showboating egomaniac, like Richard Dawkins. And FYI, they often make appearances together, when tilting at religion. As a side note, I often wonder how it came to be that the job of science is not just the discovery of natural processes, but also to bait and troll religion.

When it comes to social memes, if you want to convince a lot of people of the factually incorrect, all you need to do is put it in a square picture, slap quotes around it, and drop some famous person’s name at the bottom and, bingo, many more will believe it than not. You would be absolutely amazed at the amount of false information that get’s passed around virally in this way. That is, if you took the time to look around and verify.

I know, memes take many forms and not all are bad. Some are funny, some may actually inform. I’m talking about those people that don’t give a first thought before sharing and flooding my feed with ten or twenty words combined to generate some kind of reaction instead of inform people of truth. It wasn’t that big of a deal before. I simply clicked on the down arrow and block the source, with the logic that if I cannot trust the source, I’m not interested in what it has to offer. However, recently I’ve been doing more source blocking than reading the stuff I really do want. You know, the not dumb things, the not mean things, just those things that enrich me.

Alas, getting what I want and need does not happen nearly enough anymore, but that’s life on the web. We do have to take the bad with the good. Yet, that doesn’t mean we aren’t allowed to combat falsehood when we can, in hopes we can change a mind or two. If just one person out of a hundred stops and thinks, even for a second, then it is worth it. Even when ninety-nine people launch into such linguistic vitriol, that you wonder of they should be force-fed a box of soap by their mommies, it is worth combatting them. Obviously, we have the high ground of morality and truth on our side, so we shouldn’t get the feeling of being overwhelmed by these people. Calm reason will always win out over hostile attitude.

It is not just bad information that is at risk. Property can be damaged, in the case of the memes that promote putting sugar in your gas tank so the ethanol doesn’t freeze. Lives can be lost, as in the case where it is suggested, in a similar meme, to route a hose from your car’s exhaust pipe to inside the cab if your heater isn’t working. I admit… they are funny as hell, but when the wrong person gets that in their feed, they may actually try those things without checking. I know you may feel that if people are so dumb to try these things they deserve to have their car royally screwed and to lose their life. But… I mean, think about it, if you shared that last one, with the hose from your exhaust to your cab, and someone dies because of carbon monoxide poisoning… you are a party to murder, or at least manslaughter. You will have helped kill someone.

So, the Lemon appeals to it’s own audience, to take a moment to look into the validity of something before sharing it. I know, you may not be used to looking into these things, but you aren’t alone. I’m here to assist and give you a direction. I wrote a guide on detecting bullshit a while back, and it is a pretty easy thing to do. Click this link, even share it. Remember, it’s only funny until someone loses their car, or life.Peace

Most of us are unappreciated. I’d like to think that we all do our best to facilitate other people, but that would be myself being delusional… and you too, if that’s what you strongly believe. One could be the most talented, intelligent, useful and wise person, but all others – at least those in the position to help one grow and prosper – seem to see is just another nobody. Obviously, we’re nobody, otherwise why else would we be at the very bottom of the totem pole in every aspect of life. It must be all our fault.

We are often told by those who judge us that the one commonality, in all the situations that negatively impact us, is us. But, how far does that logic really fly? Does it not seem to you that there are other commonalities that prevent us from getting any form of satisfaction in life that are not just us? Well there are; shitty managers, rich people, crazy people and friends of shitty managers, rich people and crazy people. Taking full blame for every adversity that befalls us is disingenuous and self defecating. Stop it.

As a person who has learned long ago to look objectively and critically at oneself, I’ve been paying attention to both sides of the issue. What I have found appals me, confounds me and makes me angry. For a species that is named wise human too many of us behave so unwisely. For an animal that can empathize, and are able to choose decency over impropriety, we more often choose the latter. They step on anyone who gets between them and their objective, and sacrifice the soldier to save an officer.

We demonstrate our worth over and over again, or at least we try to if anyone would take the time out of their busy narcissism to look. We do this because that is what we’re told we’re supposed to do. If we do not demonstrate our worth, how would the overseers know? Well, we do demonstrate, especially when we aren’t aware of it. It’s evolved human behaviour. We seek to show others what we can do. It is why we call to friends to “check out what I did”. When we’re particularly proud of something it shows… even when we don’t realize it. The logic of this whole demonstration equation puts the onus solely on us. It is not a one sided issue. It is also the duty of those in control to look for these demonstrations, because if they do not they are failing us… not the other way around.

No wonder most of us don’t have the confidence to follow through on things that help us grow, that push those comfort boundaries and help fuel our self esteem. We are taking too much blame for the shitty situation we are in. Surely some of the downtrodden have done it to themselves, but that does not automatically translate into everyone who is downtrodden has been the sole author of their fate.

We are flooded with negativity about ourselves so often from birth to death that, on the rare occasion that we do actually take pride in something we’ve done, at best that pride falls on deaf eyes and at worst we are ridiculed for it. Our pride is muted, or outright destroyed, and our self esteem takes that hit every bloody time. Once in the accretion disk of the black hole, I call depression, an incredible amount of effort is needed just to not slip closer to that hole. So, you can imagine the effort I have put into this personal realization that I don’t suck, that these overseers are anything but sages, that this entire system of how bosses rule roosts is deeply and utterly fucked.

The Gallup organization, you know the one we used to trust but don’t even hear about anymore, had done a multi-million dollar study worldwide to find out that people don’t leave jobs, or even companies… they leave people, specifically managers. This then begs the question,why in all the levels of hell has nothing been done about it? Why have we gone so long, from the beginning of capitalism til now, completely and totally brain dead on this? My guess is, we haven’t really been brain dead. Including a very few managers, we are deeply aware of what’s going on. We just cannot fix it. We are forced to play their game by their ever changing rules, made up ad hoc… rules, by the way, they clearly do not have to follow. Most of us are too scared to say anything, and this is understandable, because if we do we are labelled and placed in the GTFO queue. The moment anything can be used as an excuse to be rid of the squeaky wheel we are turfed.

Some of us have unions that protect us, but only some. The vast majority are not union members. We have to rely on the laws of the state, laws formed by politicians bought and paid for by the big boys to leave them openings to screw anyone who stands up for themselves and insist on a fair shake. We are dropped like hot potatoes and we are left with no recourse to call them on the shitty logic they just used as justification.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure there is a good employer out there SOMEplace. One that doesn’t recycle Christmas party speeches, with empty verbal respects paid to the very people they’ve screwed over in order to eek out that little bit more profit. I’m sure there’s a company out there that isn’t out to fool stakeholders just how awesome the company is doing, when it’s actually tanking. This brings me to another question that’s begging in my head right now. Is a company laying off because the economy is tanking, or is the economy tanking because these companies are just too narcissistic to recognize that they’re screwing everyone? Did you know that 2016 is the year that the rich possess half the world’s wealth… and they’re getting even richer?

I digress. This is about how we, you, don’t suck. This is about how it’s really not your fault. This is about taking control of the little part you can, that part of you that cannot be denied by anyone, that part that tells you that you are valuable even (and perhaps especially) when they refuse to see it. Peace

Wait… what? Birthday? Today is not only the first day of the new year, but also the birthday of oneeyedlemon.com, and the commitment to whatever-it-is I do here. One year ago today OEL Dotcom greeted the new world of 2015 with a small core of several people, mostly family and friends. Since then the Lemon community on Facebook has grown to 31 members, and is still slowly growing. I tracked the then Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative party through a long and grueling federal election campaign, took potshots at Business Insider for crappy science reporting, trash talked Al Qaida and ISIS and introduced the original cartoon “Ogg”. In 2015 OEL branched out to Twitter, harnessing 2,983 members (as of December 31, 11:59:59CST), changed web hosts twice because of underhanded tactics, and have generally been a pain in the ass of any person, or group of persons, with high levels of moral ineptitude.

I may have had more to criticize in 2015, but I still found the time for a healthy spattering of science, fiction and fun. There was a huge amount of politics on EOL last year, and this year looks to be much the same, as Brad Wall (Premier of Saskatchewan) will be facing an election year in 2016. This is the man who killed my dream of getting a start in the film industry, by killing the film tax credit and sending production companies to neighboring provinces. So, you know I truly do not like Mr. Wall and my articles will pull no punches. Like Harper, Wall is going down.

One Eyed Lemon will continue to grow, expand and explore, as I start using video as a medium of expression. I will at times be somewhat hostile, definitely humourous and will probably show you things you do not want to see. But, I encourage you to look anyway, because that is how we all grow. I’m not here to shove your face in anything, as long as you don’t take a crap on my floor of course.

Here’s to a great year now laid to rest, and a new year barely out of the womb. Live and love to the fullest.